100 BIRDS 



ward to the centre of the abdomen. Wing linings rose. 



Underneath, tail quills, and two spots on wings white. 



Conspicuous, blunt beak. 

 Female — ^Brownish, with dark streakings, like a sparrow. 



Light sulphur yellow under wings. 

 Range — ^Eastern North America, from southern Canada to 



Panama. 

 Migrations — ^Early May. September. Summer resident. 



Among birds, as among humans, it is the father who 

 lends his name to the family, however difficult it may be to 

 know the mother by it. Who that had not studied the 

 books would recognize Mrs. Scarlet Tanager by her name? 

 Or Mrs, Purple Finch? Or Mrs. Indigo Bunting? Or Mrs. 

 Rose-breasted Grosbeak? The last-named lady has not a 

 rose-colored feather on her, yet she is not a feminist. She 

 is a streaked, brown bird, resembling an overgrown spar- 

 row, with a thick, exaggerated finch bill and a conspicuous, 

 white eyebrow. When her husband wears his winter 

 clothes in the tropics, his feathers are said to be similar to 

 hers, so that even his name, then, does not fit. But when 

 he returns to the United States in May he is, in very truth, 

 a rose-breasted grosbeak, a splendidly handsome fellow. 

 Perhaps before you get a glimpse of the lovely brilliant rose 

 feathers that are his best means of introduction, you may 

 hear a thin eeh call-note from some tree-top, or better stiU, 

 listen to the sweet, pure, mellow, joyously warbled song, 

 now loud and clear, now roUing and softly tender, that puts 

 him in the first rank of our songsters. 



His special fondness for potato bugs, among other beetle 

 pests, endears him to the farmers; but dependence upon in- 

 sect diet necessitates migration. 



